‘We’re moving forward’, says MMIW chief
Indigenous inquiry beset by complications
Marion Buller isn’t going anywhere, thank you very much.
Despite the barrage of criticism the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women has faced in recent months, its chief commissioner has never considered stepping down. The work is too important, she says.
Buller seems, if anything, a bit bemused by accusations that she and her fellow commissioners have been frittering away their time since the inquiry was launched l ast September. Much of that time, she says, has been eaten up by mundane tasks that don’t make headlines — opening offices, getting laptops and Wi-Fi.
“I just didn’t think it was national news that we got a shredder,” she told the National Post in a wide-ranging interview Wednesday, during which she discussed the challenges the inquiry has faced, what she thinks will change, and why she’s forging ahead.
“The startup for me was very, very frustrating,” she said.
But she seems to think the inquiry is turning a page. Teams are now travelling to communities. A schedule of hearings has been released for the fall, and the commissioners are planning more for the winter. Despite calls for her to throw in the towel, the former B. C. provincial court judge intends to see this through.
Buller said the inquiry has been bogged down in government red tape — procedures it had to follow to hire employees and buy equipment, which have dramatically extended the amount of time it takes to get things done.
While the inquiry’s Vancouver office opened in October, for instance, it didn’t get Wi-Fi until February. The office in Ottawa didn’t open until May.
But t he commission’s problems haven’t been administrative only. The inquiry has been rocked by a number of recent resignations, including one of its five commissioners, Marilyn Poitras, and executive director Michèle Moreau. One source who was inside the inquiry recently told the Post it felt like “high school,” and that it suffered from infighting and a lack of leadership.
At a recent news confer- ence, Buller claimed that some staff have left because they’ve been “offered jobs of a lifetime,” prompting one source to tell the Post the chief commissioner needed to “take off the rose-coloured glasses.”
On Wednesday, Buller conceded that not everybody left for dream jobs.
“Were some people unhappy? Of course,” she said. “Sitting around the table in my family, not everybody’s happy all the time, and I respect that.”
Until now, the inquiry has been reluctant to respond to criticism. But that may be changing. Teams are now on the ground meeting with communities in preparation for this fall’s hearings, and staff members are now speaking with l ocal media.
“Now that we have the opportunity to tell all Canadians about the good work we’re doing, we intend to do that,” Buller said.
Still, a growing number of voices have been calling for a reset of the commission, and for the commissioners to step down.
That’s not something the government is considering. Even if it were, it’s unclear what that would entail. This inquiry is unique in that it was established jointly by the federal government and by all the provinces and territories, which have each signed their own orders- incouncil naming the five original commissioners.
And there are still some voices calling for the commissioners to persevere. Cochairs of an advisory council in the Yukon, where the first hearing was held in May, sent a letter to Buller earlier this week highlighting their continued support.
“We feel very strongly that if a restart or reset occurs with the National Inquiry, it would dishonour the Yukon families who were brave enough to come forward and be the first people to speak to this important work in Canada,” they wrote.
Buller agrees. This is an issue that has concerned her since her days as a judge in B. C., where she dealt with many assaults and murders of Indigenous women.
“I had many days in court where I just shook my head wondering how on earth could this tragedy be happening in Canada, where we pride ourselves on what a kind and gentle country we are,” she said. “We’ve got to get to the bottom of it. This can’t continue. The work is too important. The voices are too important to go unheard.”